


Aye Aye

by istie



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: D/s, F/M, Knife Play, Light BDSM, Unhealthy Relationships, no sexytimes, okay the loveberg is a wee bit more obvious this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-15 20:03:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9254258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istie/pseuds/istie
Summary: It's been awfully quiet since Doug blasted off for parts unknown.  Everyone's getting a little ... antsy.  Plus, dancing with clothespins on your ears, the most fun you've had all year, space pacing, and exploratory conversation probes.[This is set after episode 28 "Who's There?" and before episode 31 "Sécurité".]





	

Lovelace still couldn’t quite look herself in the mirror. 

She sat on the edge of her cot, holding the frame to keep herself anchored, and she stared at the floor between her feet, already clad in her standard-issue boots, the soles scuffed from hard use and the laces replaced three times.  She’d polished them yesterday.  She stared at the floor, the metal plating, and she reached her feet down just a little bit more and touched it, and felt the subtle thrumming of the station increase slightly from ambience to sensation.

This was home.  She was home, whatever that really meant in the end.  But she couldn’t bring herself to raise her head.  She’d installed the little mirror directly across from her cot, to keep efficiency at maximum – she’d spent time in military-grade space quarters, the Goddard Futuristics ones were practically suites – so that when she got up, she could hit the floor and check her uniform in one smooth motion before heading out the door.

Today, she got up and left without looking in the mirror at all.

* * *

Hilbert was twitchy. 

An onlooker probably would not have noticed it.  _Definitely_ would not have noticed it, in some people’s cases.  He thought Lovelace _might_ notice, but her duties that day would not take her anywhere near him, and he felt a begrudging spark of gratitude that the schedule had worked out that way.  Minkowski might notice, but she would have to look closely.  Hera would certainly notice it, but they did not talk much any more, so that did not matter.  And Eiffel, of course, would not have noticed if Hilbert had danced through the room with clothespins on his ears.

Damn him.  Damn him, damn her, and damn it all.

He accidentally clinked another beaker against the desk and swore softly under his breath.  Today was _really_ not the day to be twitchy.

* * *

Minkowski was twirling in the comms chair.

This was not something she normally would have done, of course.  Not even in the happiest of moods.  This was so far out of the realm of appropriate that it was unthinkable.

But Eiffel did it all the time, hooking his feet around the spokes of the chair’s base, and pushing off from the console as fast as he could.  Sometimes he’d tuck his arms in to spin faster and then he’d throw them out when he got too dizzy, laughing at himself when he let go of the base and floated off aimlessly, his inner ear protesting uselessly as he cartwheeled and somersaulted around the room.

She remembered the first time she’d caught him doing it.  She’d reamed him out for a solid five minutes, ranting about breaking priceless equipment and being irresponsible and neglecting his duties.  He’d seemed contrite, of course, but she’d caught him doing it again the next week, and soon after that she learned to detect the little twinkle in his eye that almost always showed up whenever he was ‘contrite’. 

She’d snuck in and tried it herself, _months_ later, on a graveyard shift, when it was just her and Hera awake.  And god damn it if it wasn’t the most fun she’d had all year.

She slowed the twirl to a stop and stared at the console, beeping faintly, lights flickering.  Hera was manning the comms this shift, in addition to manning everything else; Minkowski was supposed to be working on repairing one of the secondary coolant grids down in sector five.  Hilbert was working out the new hydroponics schedule, in theory.  Lovelace was off duty for another hour, then she was conducting a full diagnostic of the tertiary electrical grid, still on light duty for the next week.  Minkowski was certain that she was chafing at it already, and she’d only been off bed rest for twenty-four hours.

And Eiffel … wasn’t there anymore.

Minkowski stared, hard, at the blinking lights.  She watched them for several seconds before asking a question she already knew the answer to.  “Anything?”

There was a tiny pause before Hera replied.  “Nothing, Commander.”

Renée sighed and tilted her head back to rest on the chair.

* * *

Lovelace pulled herself back and forth along the length of the corridor, hooking her feet and hands onto handlebars with practiced ease.  This was the closest you could get to pacing in a weightless space station, and she’d spent many hours honing her skills at space-pacing over the course of her many years in space. 

She’d finished the diagnostic of the tertiary electrical grid.  It had only taken her two hours.  She had nothing else on her duty roster for the day, and she was bored.  She knew it, and that was why she’d come to her favourite pacing corridor, swimming back and forth while she thought about what to occupy her time with. 

She wasn’t having much luck so far.  There were plenty of things to repair, but she knew straining herself would do more harm than good, and most of the things that needed repairing really needed two people.  Hera was running at near-full capacity, so doing more diagnostics wasn’t an option.  And there weren’t any more options for entertainment on this boat than there were in her first rotation.  The VHS of Home Alone 2 that someone at Canaveral – probably Jacobi – thought it would be funny to sneak into the cargo hold.  And now the cargo hold was barely even there.  That had been her last resort before: head down to the cargo hold and browse the cargo manifest.  She’d never figured out what most of those crates _really_ were.  Now it didn’t matter, because most of them were gone.  Thanks, Minkowski. 

She sighed and swung herself around, doing a couple of loops while letting her mind idle.  If only she had a book, or hell, another person not on duty, you could always scrounge up a deck of cards and maybe they were bored enough to play a round of strip poker.  That was usually good for a few laughs, at least.

Another loop.  She thought about the one time they’d managed to get Lambert to play.  She’d chuckled about that for a _long_ time afterward.  And of course it had always gotten slightly awkward if Fourier and Hui played.  But hey, she thought, any port in a storm.  Sometimes you just had to … let off steam.

She didn’t let go of the next handle she grabbed, instead pulling to a halt.  She smiled, wheeled a hundred and eighty degrees, and pushed off down the corridor towards the science wing.

* * *

Hilbert was slowly titrating the contents of a test tube into a beaker when he felt breath on his neck.  He very carefully controlled the worst of the startle reflex, exhaling slowly, not lifting his gaze from what he was doing, willing the hair on the back of his neck to lay flat again.  “…Captain,” he said, his voice flat, “can I help you.”

Lovelace deliberately blew her breath down his neck again as she answered.  “That depends.”

Hilbert didn’t turn, though his shoulders squared.  “On what.”  He heard her shift something in her pocket. 

“How goes the hydroponics schedule?”

He narrowed his eyes, still refusing to turn around.  “It is … not complete.”  Exploratory probe number one.

Whatever it was in her pocket, she was turning it over and over in her hand, he could hear it sliding against the fabric of her jumpsuit.  “Interesting.  I would have thought it would take less time, seeing as we have … fewer people.”  Her voice dipped on the last words.  Aha.  Data received.

Second probe.  “On the contrary, Captain.  Prior to your arrival, our hydroponics bay was functioning perfectly.  In recent months, it has been stretched.  Now that we have a different set of nutritional requirements, it is not a matter of simply returning to what worked before … I must find _balance_.”  The swishing noise of fabric stopped.  Her hand out of her pocket, perhaps? 

“I see.  Fascinating.  Tell me, then … why are you in your personal lab, playing with your … chemistry set?  Hydroponics is on the other side of the station.”

Data confirmed.  She _was_ playing with him.  He chided himself: he should have known from her entrance.  She only entered silently when she wanted to play.  She was like a cat that way.  “I am preparing several samples of nutrient meal to test fertilizer levels.  I cannot complete the schedule without adequate information.”

Something thin and possibly pointed traced up the back of his neck.  She’d gotten the claws out early, he thought.  “Do you think, Selberg, that I’m an idiot?”  Her voice had dropped firmly into the register that made him the least comfortable.  The knife – probably actually a scalpel – at his neck didn’t help.  “Even if the compounds you were using were anything close to fertilizer, a soil test would take at least a week … and I happen to know that you did that test ten days ago, and you submitted the finished schedule to Hera twenty minutes ago.”

He gently set the beaker down, and placed the test tube in its rack.  He lowered his gloved hands to his work surface, taking hold of the edge.  He was out of practice.  That gambit would never have worked on her before.   Of course she knew the answer coming in.  He’d gotten used to dodging Eiffel.  Clumsy.  “Then why did you ask?”

The knife tip left his skin.  He felt the air brush him as she moved back.  “To see what story you’d give me.”

Exasperation bubbled in his stomach.  How dare she waltz in like nothing had changed in years—he whirled to face her, and immediately recoiled, arching his torso back over his desk.  An inch further and he would have cut his face on the scalpel.  An inch, though: not a millimetre.  This wasn’t the razor-thin margin they’d had before.  They both hadn’t seen each other – not like this – in years.  He met her eyes: dark brown and calm, looking at him from above her outstretched, pointing arm.  Was she leaving the margin for her own benefit, or for his?  “What do you want, Isabel?”

Her left eyebrow rose slightly.  “I don’t remember allowing you to use that name, _Selberg._ ”

He stared her down, eyes narrowing slightly.  “I do not remember taking any orders, _Captain._ ”

She lowered the scalpel and moved closer, half an arm’s length away.  She was taller than him by a full head, and clearly hadn’t tired of reminding him of such: she looked down at him and smiled lightly – a smile that, for all its chill, reached her eyes.  “But now I’m Captain.  I think you remember just fine.”

Hilbert fought the urge to swallow, and forced himself to hold her gaze.  “What… do... you… _want_?”

She moved even closer, and brought the scalpel up again, this time tracing his windpipe and the underside of his jaw, forcing him to tilt his head up to hers.  “I.  Want.  To.  _Play_.”

His mouth was dry.  He couldn’t help it.  He swallowed, and felt the tip of the scalpel touch his skin.  “… and if I am not … amenable to the idea?”

Her eyelids dropped by millimetres, her smile grew by the same, and he could swear he saw a glint in her eyes that wasn’t from the lab lights.  “Then I’ll give you an order … _doctor._ ”

He considered the various data he had at his disposal: he considered the time, the new crew, the chemicals roaring through his brain and blood.  He weighed his options.  He moved his chess pieces.  He considered each outcome.  He did not move his eyes from hers, and he did not swallow again.  His voice rasped slightly as he responded, after these silent seconds of deliberation.  “… Aye aye, Captain.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of a Secret Santa gift. Fun times!


End file.
